


The Wayne Internship

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim Drake-centric, Wayne Enterprises, and he's not even technically tim's parent yet, i have no idea what to tag this one, inspired by Spiderman: Homecoming, what do I tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28817286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: “My folks are going out tonight for some karaoke thing, which means you and I get to spend all night playing Guitar Hero and eating pizza. I’ll even let you get that artichoke shit on your half.”Tim stuffs his algebra book into his backpack. “That sounds awesome, but I can’t tonight. I have the Wayne internship, remember?”Ives groans, having evidently forgotten. “You can’t get out of it?”Tim shakes his head. “Bruce gets swamped on Tuesdays.”“Bummer.Seriousbummer.”(AKA the fic where Tim invents a mostly-fake Wayne internship to cover for his Robin activities, à la Spiderman: Homecoming.)
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Sebastian Ives
Comments: 12
Kudos: 283





	The Wayne Internship

It took some finessing at first, but Tim is proud to report that he’s become quite the talented liar, his skill level falling just shy of the Batman himself. In fact, over the past few months that Tim has served as Gotham’s one and only Boy Wonder, lying has become as easy as breathing.   
  
...That’s something to be proud of, right?  
  
“I come bearing good news!” Ives announces as he approaches Tim’s locker, his skateboard tucked under one arm. Students flood from their classrooms and swarm the hallway, all eager to grab their stuff and go home. Ives leans against the locker next to Tim’s, grinning. “My folks are going out tonight for some karaoke thing, which means you and I get to spend all night playing Guitar Hero and eating pizza. I’ll even let you get that artichoke shit on your half.”  
  
Tim stuffs his algebra book into his backpack. “That sounds awesome, but I can’t tonight. I have the Wayne internship, remember?”  
  
Ives groans, having evidently forgotten. “You can’t get out of it?”  
  
Tim shakes his head. “Bruce gets swamped on Tuesdays.”  
  
“Bummer. _Serious_ bummer.” Ives snatches a bag of wasabi peas from Tim’s locker and tears it open. “How about this weekend, then?”  
  
Tim pretends to think it over. “Not this weekend, but I might be free next Saturday if I move some things around.” Dick is visiting from Blüdhaven that day, so Bruce can always take Nightwing out on patrol instead of Robin.   
  
“What does this Wayne guy even have you doing? You can’t possibly be so important that you can’t take _one_ day off without everything falling apart. I could book a date with Lady Gaga faster than five seconds with my own best friend.”   
  
He says it jokingly, but Tim knows he’s hurt. And he’s right to be; Tim has been focusing so much on his Robin responsibilities that nearly every other aspect of his life has slipped through the cracks. He’s gone from straight A’s to B’s, and he missed his math test last week when Robin got kidnapped and held in a musty warehouse overnight.  
  
(Tim told his dad that he fell asleep on the subway after doing some overnight work for the Wayne internship and woke up in Pennsylvania. Not his best moment.)  
  
“I know it sucks,” Tim says, “but this internship could open a lot of doors for me in the future. Right now I’m just a glorified assistant, but it could grow into an actual position one day. Who knows, maybe I’ll build a career in business.”  
  
Ives mimes vomiting. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over how boring that sentence was.”  
  
“See, this is why I couldn’t snag you a gig at WayneTech. Toning down the judginess might be a step up.”  
  
Ives waves it off. “Who needs a job? My TikTok career is going to take off any day now.”  
  
Tim closes his locker. “Then I hope you and your empty bank account are really happy together.”  
  
“You’re the reason we should eat the rich.”  
  
Tim laughs and slings on his backpack. He snags a few wasabi peas for himself, letting Ives keep the bag. They’re expired, anyway. “Look, I can’t do tonight, but my dad canceled on a hockey game we were gonna see tomorrow. Want the extra ticket?”  
  
“Oh, _hell_ yes.” Ives pumps his fist in the air. “Did you know that blood bounces on ice? It’s a temperature difference thing, so when a player gets clocked, the blood splatter is even more wicked than if it were on regular ground.”  
  
Of course, Tim already knew that. He’s battled Mister Freeze more than enough times to witness the phenomenon in action—usually from his own wounds. He pretends to be fascinated. “No way, really?”  
  
“Yes way. So don’t flake out on me this time, okay?”  
  
“When have I ever flaked out on you?”  
  
“Uh, last night?” Oh. Right. Joker broke out of Arkham again. “The DND tournament last weekend?” Museum robbery. “My _birthday party?”_ Tim really did _intend_ to go to that one, but when Killer Croc and Poison Ivy join forces, it’s all hands on deck. Besides, Tim sent Ives an expensive present, so it all evened out in the end.  
  
“Fine, so maybe I flake out a lot. But it’s stressful having a responsibility like this. It feels like everyone is constantly watching me, just waiting for me to screw something up. And Bruce is hard to keep up with, so I have to constantly be on my toes.”  
  
“You make it sound like you’re working for the queen of England. What’s Bruce Wayne even like, anyway? Is he as snooty in person as he is on TV? Does he blow his nose with hundred-dollar bills?”  
  
Tim shrugs. By now they’ve made it outside, the air smelling of exhaust from the line of school buses lingering at the curb. “I don’t know, he’s a normal guy. Kind of ditzy, but he seems nice enough. I usually just grab him his coffee and tell him when his tie is crooked.”  
  
“A job where you get paid for doing nothing? I take it back, I want in. That sounds awesome.”  
  
“It’s pretty boring, to be honest. But at least it’ll look good on my résumé.” Still, _defends Gotham City alongside Batman_ always sounds better.  
  
Ives digs his key fob out of his pocket and presses a button. His mom’s 2001 Toyota beeps in response across the parking lot. “Want a ride home?”  
  
“Thanks, but I’ve got—”  
  
“Wayne internship, right.” Tragically across the complete opposite side of town from Ives’ house. “Try and talk Wayne into giving you a day off at some point, Mr. Workaholic. See you tomorrow.” With a salute, he walks across the parking lot to his car.   
  
A small part of Tim feels guilty for letting his Robin responsibilities decimate his social life as it has, but he’s always been adept at making the current circumstances work to his advantage. It just takes some practice, is all.   
  
It’s a genius plan, really. The so-called “Wayne internship” gives Tim an alibi for his whereabouts, all while keeping his dad off his back about getting a real job, which would only add more chaos to Tim’s already precarious lifestyle. Who knew that leading a secret double life would be so complicated?  
  
The only faulty cog is that the ruse doesn’t work unless Tim shows his face around the office once or twice a week to keep up appearances. Bruce will give Tim small tasks like fetching him something from the printer or getting coffee, just so it seems like he’s doing actual work and not just lounging on the sofa in Bruce’s office, eating gummy worms and drawing ninjas on his homework.  
  
It’s not the worst gig in the world. Honestly, it’s kind of nice having somewhere to escape to when Tim needs a break from the all-encompassing Everything with a capital E.  
  
It’s a twenty-minute cab ride from Gotham Heights to Wayne Tower. Alfred has offered time and again to simply drive Tim himself, but Tim doesn’t mind the extra fare. If there’s one thing that Bruce drilled into Tim’s head throughout those six months of training, it’s that you can’t swear to defend a city until you’ve seen all its angles, good and bad. Being a true Gothamite is witnessing the grit of the streets, the everlasting smell of pipe smoke, the taxi drivers with bloodshot eyes and cracked teeth.  
  
Tim tips the driver twice the ride fare—another little trick that Bruce taught him. It’s the duty of the wealthier citizens to make up for the difference, he always says. And it’s not like Tim can’t afford it.  
  
Just outside of Wayne Tower is the same man who has sat in that exact spot since Tim first started coming here, playing yet another Beatles song on his trumpet. It’s a little flat, but who is Tim to judge? The farthest he got was a year of the recorder in elementary school before he gave up on music altogether. Tim tosses a few dollars in the coffee can at the man’s feet and enters the building.  
  
He swipes his I.D. at the scanner and greets Alfonzo, the security guard. Alfonzo used to do lethal jobs for Penguin until Batman and Robin interceded, offering him a new path and a Wayne Enterprises job application. The lobby is as packed as always, but nobody looks twice at Tim in his four-foot-nine glory. There is technically a dress code here, but Bruce lets Tim pass with a clip-on tie over his t-shirt, and so long as his jeans aren’t ripped, he’s golden.  
  
It’s a long trip up the elevator to the top floor, almost 900 feet off the ground. Once Tim made the mistake of taking the stairs, just to see what it was like. He made it about halfway before feeling like his legs were going to fall off. He forced himself to the top anyway.  
  
“Hi, Tim,” Shelby says from behind the reception desk as Tim emerges from the elevator. “Good timing. Mr. Wayne just finished up a meeting. How was school?”  
  
“Same old.” Tim takes a Tootsie Pop from the glass bowl on her desk. She started putting them out a week after Tim started. “How are the kids?” Shelby has two daughters, both in elementary school. This job is the only thing keeping the three of them fed and clothed after her husband left her and emptied their savings last year.   
  
Shelby tells Tim all about little Harriet’s student of the month award, and then it’s a quick goodbye before Tim makes his way across the huge office to Bruce’s slightly-less-huge personal office at the back. A shiny C.E.O. nameplate glimmers on the door. The door is already partially ajar, so Tim pushes it open the rest of the way and walks in.  
  
“Hey, Bruce.”  
  
Bruce is sitting at his unnecessarily humongous oak desk, head bent over his computer. The office is lit by the massive wall of glass that serves as a window to look over Gotham, the view showing off everything from Robinson Park to Crest Hill. Sometimes Tim will press himself against the glass and look down at the city below, watching people bustle along and wondering what each of their lives could be like.   
  
Bruce looks up briefly. “Hey, pal. How was school?”  
  
“Fine.” Tim drops his backpack on the floor and sits on the leather sofa, gnawing through his lollipop to the center. “How was the meeting?”  
  
“Long. Very long.”  
  
“Lex Luthor again?”  
  
Bruce gives an almost-smile. “He had an issue with the Wayne Enterprises billboard outside of his office building. Apparently staring at my face all day was a dealbreaker for him.”  
  
“Still think it would’ve been funnier to put Superman on it.”  
  
“Superman doesn’t have any ties to the company.”  
  
“He could be our new spokesmodel.” Tim tosses his lollipop stick into the wastebasket beside the desk. “You know—truth, justice, and rechargeable industrial generators. It’s got a nice ring to it, right?”  
  
Bruce chuckles. “I think we’ll table that idea for another time.”  
  
They fall into a familiar routine after that. Bruce works on whatever C.E.O. business Lucius allows him, meanwhile Tim plows through his homework. It doesn’t take him long to finish, after which Bruce offers to let Tim shred some old documents. They’re nothing special—credit card bills, old financial records, scrap paper with some Bat-tech modifications doodled on them. And when Tim gets bored of that, he digs out his DSI from the front pocket of his backpack and races a few rounds on Mario Kart.  
  
Before he knows it, two hours have passed and the sun has begun its descent.  
  
“Okay, now pick three places you’d want to live in,” Tim says. He’s currently upside-down on the couch, his legs thrown over the back and his hair brushing against the carpet.  
  
“Gotham.”  
  
Tim writes it on his notepad with his Bat-issued pen, because of _course_ Batman has a pen that writes upside-down. He’s _Batman._ “What else?”  
  
“Gotham. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”  
  
Tim makes a buzzer sound. “That’s not how the game works. You gotta pick two others.”  
  
“Fine. Hawaii.”  
  
“Okay...okay, one more.”  
  
“Themyscira.”  
  
“I thought men aren’t allowed there?”  
  
“It’s a children’s game, Tim. I sincerely doubt it abides by real-world limits. And what better place to train than with some of the best fighters on the planet?”  
  
Tim rolls his eyes. “You need some new hobbies.” But he writes it in anyway. “And for the last one, I’m putting Metropolis.”  
  
“Why do you hate me?”  
  
Tim snickers. “All right, now pick a number from one to ten.”  
  
“Seven.”  
  
“Okay, give me a sec.” Tim gets to work counting through the columns, eliminating each multiple of seven.  
  
At his desk, Bruce rolls his shoulders and bends his neck until it cracks. He closes his laptop. “Are you hungry?”  
  
“Starving.” Tim crosses out _professional snake wrangler_ in the job category.  
  
“Good. I’m in the mood for Pad Thai, what do you think?”  
  
“Works for me. Jot down your order and I can go pick it up.” It’s somewhat of a lengthy walk to the closest Thai restaurant, but their shrimp is good.  
  
“Actually, I was thinking we could go out to eat. I’ve been cooped up in this office all day.”  
  
“Really?” Usually Tim will just get takeout and they’ll eat it here in the office, Bruce going about his business and Tim keeping himself busy until it’s time to go home. This is uncharted territory.  
  
Bruce grabs his jacket from the hook on the wall. “It’ll feel good to stretch my legs. You coming?”  
  
Tim rolls so he’s right-side-up once more, his hair flopping back into place against his forehead. “Hang on, let me finish this.” He counts seven more spaces and crosses out the final row. “Okay, so according to this super accurate fortune teller, you are going to: live in a shack, marry Catwoman, be a cashier, have six kids, drive a Batmobile, and live in Metropolis. Congratulations.”  
  
“I’m thrilled. Can we go now?”  
  
“Only if we invite your future bride.”  
  
“You’re hilarious.”  
  
Tim pulls on his own jacket, leaving the notepad and pen on the couch. “I sure hope you can pay for the food, with your cashier salary and all.”  
  
“Don’t make me leave you in the car. I’ll do it.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
By the time Tim gets home it’s nearly dark out, but that can be blamed on the changing season rather than the late-ish hour itself. It’s not even six o’clock; Tim isn’t  _ that  _ late.   
  
“You’re late,” Jack says as soon as Tim walks through the front door. His wheelchair is parked in the foyer, his arms crossed over his chest. “You said you’d be home after school.”   
  
Tim scratches the back of his neck. “Well...technically, it  _ is  _ after school. And I am home.”   
  
_ “Tim.” _   
  
“I was at Wayne Tower, okay? No reason to freak.”   
  
“You’ve said that the past three nights in a row. I thought this internship was supposed to be on weekends.”   
  
Shit. “It is, but it’s been pretty busy lately. Lots of corporate stuff. I’ve been picking up extra hours to help Bruce out.”   
  
His dad huffs, seeming to accept the fib. “What is Wayne paying you, anyway?”   
  
Tim shrugs. He hitches his backpack higher on his shoulder and walks past his dad toward the kitchen. Jack follows. “Enough that I don’t mind the extra hours. And it’s good experience, so it’s not like I’m getting nothing out of it.”   
  
Okay.  _ Technically,  _ Tim isn’t being paid by the company, since it’s a mostly made-up position, but Bruce gives Tim an allowance of sorts for the hours he puts in doing important work like spinning around in Bruce’s desk chair and playing Tetris. It counts, okay? Tim opens the fridge and grabs a Gatorade, cracking the top open and taking a swig.    
  
“I still don’t understand why you’d waste your time with Wayne when I could have gotten you a  _ perfectly  _ good internship at Drake Industries.”   
  
_ Here we go again.  _ “I don’t want you making your employees hand me a job, Dad. If I’m going to get an internship at a major company, I want to earn it.”   
  
_ “Earn,”  _ Jack scoffs. “Do you think Bruce Wayne has earned a single thing in his life? I doubt the guy knows what C.E.O. even stands for.”   
  
Tim’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like that. Bruce is a good man. He cares about this city and does everything he can to make it better.”   
  
And really, isn’t that the whole point of Batman? Helping however you can, even if it’s something as small as donating a few grand to build an orphanage or repair a bridge. Even when he isn’t wearing a mask, Bruce still finds a way to help people by settling into the role he was born in: an average citizen who came into the world with too much wealth, and who uses it to make other people’s lives better.   
  
He gives jobs to ex-criminals who just need a foothold, a gentle push in the right direction. He throws away donations like they’re candy, funding every project he can find. He went out of his way to convince the R&D department to manufacture women’s pants with pockets the day after one of his employees griped about it. He had eight new pairs delivered to her house a week later.   
  
It shows that you don’t need a cape to help people, and Tim has always liked that about Batman. Heroism doesn’t stop when the sun comes up. Tim wants to do that one day, use his own resources to make the world a better place, however he can.    
  
After all, it’s not like he’s going to be Robin forever. As much as the Wayne internship is a lie formulated to excuse his empty bed at night, Tim still makes an effort to absorb as much as he can when he’s at Wayne Tower. He makes mental notes, tracking Bruce’s deeds and telling himself that he will replicate it all someday.   
  
“Are you staying in tonight?” his father asks, changing the subject.   
  
“Actually, there’s a Wayne Fundraiser at the Hills Plaza at eight. Bruce needs my help.” Not entirely a lie. There  _ is  _ a fundraiser, even if neither Bruce nor Tim is attending. And Bruce  _ does  _ need Tim’s help tracking down one of Falcone’s men tonight.   
  
Jack harumphs. “Of course he does. Be quiet when you get in then, will you? I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”   
  
“Sure thing, Dad.”   
  
Tim should say something more. Apologize, maybe, for how little time he spends at home nowadays. Call Bruce and tell him that Tim can’t go out tonight, maybe tomorrow instead. But Jack is already wheeling himself away, and Tim knows he couldn’t make the words come if he tried.    
  
Tim’s realized by now that, over the past few months in which he’s served as the Boy Wonder to Bruce’s Dark Knight, he’s grown okay with making sacrifices—almost to the point where he’s stopped caring about the losses. He’s okay if his grades plummet, if his social life reeks, if one of these nights he steps into the city’s drooling maw and doesn’t come back.    
  
What Tim does as Robin is good. He’s helping people. He’s helping  _ Bruce,  _ without whom this city would plunge into chaos.    
  
Maybe that’s what makes Tim stand a little straighter when he talks about the Wayne internship, fictional as it is. Maybe it’s why he never truly feels like himself until there’s a mask over his eyes and a cape billowing behind him, signaling to all who witness him that Tim Drake is making a  _ difference.  _ He  _ matters. _   
  
And Tim wouldn’t give that up for anything.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


End file.
